Peter Charles Archibald Ewart Jennings, CM (July
29, 1938 – August 7, 2005)
was a Canadian-American journalist and
news anchor. He was the sole anchor of ABC's World News Tonight from 1983 until his death in 2005 of complications from
lung cancer. A high-school dropout, he transformed himself into one of America's most
prominent journalists.
Jennings started his career early, hosting a Canadian radio show at the age of nine. In 1965, ABC
News tapped him to anchor its flagship evening news program. His inexperience marred his first short stint in the anchor
chair, and Jennings became a foreign correspondent in 1968, honing his reporting skills in the Middle East.
He returned as one of World News Tonight's three anchors in 1978, and was promoted to the role of sole anchor in 1983.
Jennings formed part of the "Big Three" news anchors who dominated American evening news in the 1980s and 1990s. Having always
been fascinated with the United States, Jennings became a dual citizen of Canada and the
United States in 2003. His death, which closely followed the retirements of Tom Brokaw and
Dan Rather, marked the end of the "Big Three" era.
Biography
Early life
Jennings was born in Toronto, Ontario; he and his younger
sister Sarah were children of Elizabeth Osborne and Charles Jennings, a prominent radio
broadcaster for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC). Peter
Jennings started his broadcasting career at the age of nine, hosting Peter's People, a half-hour, Saturday morning, CBC
Radio show for kids. His father was on a business trip to the Middle East when the show debuted; upon returning, Charles
Jennings, who harbored a deep dislike of nepotism, was outraged to learn that the network had put his son on the air.[1]
When he was 11, Jennings started attending Trinity College School in
Port Hope, Ontario, where he excelled in sports. After the CBC moved his father to
its Ottawa headquarters in the early 1950s, Jennings transferred to Lisgar
Collegiate Institute.[1] He struggled academically, and Jennings later surmised that it was out of "pure
boredom" that he failed 10th grade and dropped out. "I loved girls," he said. "I loved comic books. And for reasons I don't
understand, I was pretty lazy."[2] Jennings then briefly attended Carleton
University, where he says he "lasted about 10 minutes" before dropping out.[3]
Although Jennings dreamed of following in his father's footsteps in broadcasting, his first job was as a bank teller for the
Royal Bank of Canada. He had hoped that the company would assign him to its
Havana branch; instead, it located him in the tiny town of Prescott, Ontario, before transferring him to its nearby Brockville branch.[1] During this time, he explored acting by appearing in several amateur musical
productions with the Orpheus Musical Theatre Society, including
Damn Yankees and South
Pacific.[4] It was in
Brockville that the 21-year-old Jennings started his meteoric rise in broadcasting. In 1959, CFJR, a local radio station, hired him as a member of its news department; many of his stories, including his
coverage of a local train wreck, were picked up by the CBC.[5] By 1961, Jennings had joined the staff of CJOH-TV, then a
new television station in Ottawa. When the station launched in March 1961, Jennings was initially an interviewer and co-producer
for Vue, a late-night news program. His producers saw a youthful attractiveness in him that resembled that of
Dick Clark, and Jennings soon found himself hosting Club Thirteen, a dance show
similar to American Bandstand.[6]
The next year, CTV, Canada's first private TV station and a fledgling
competitor of his father's network, hired the 24-year-old Jennings as co-anchor of its late-night national newscast.[7] While reporting for CTV, he was the first
Canadian journalist to arrive in Dallas after the 1963 assassination of President John F.
Kennedy.[1] In 1964,
CTV sent Jennings to cover the Democratic National Convention in
Atlantic City, New Jersey. There, he ran
into Elmer Lower, then president of ABC News, who offered him a job as a correspondent for
the American network, an opportunity Jennings initially rejected.[8] "The job was pretty intimidating for a guy like me in a tiny city in Canada," Jennings later
recalled. "I thought, What if I screw up? What if I fail?"[2] Three months later though, he changed his mind and packed his bags for America.[8]
America's youngest anchor
A 26-year-old Jennings in a 1965 ABC handout photo to promote
Peter Jennings With the News.
Jennings started reporting for ABC at its New York news bureau.[8] At the time, ABC lagged behind the more established news divisions
of NBC and CBS, and the network was trying to attract younger viewers.
On February 1, 1965, ABC plucked the fresh-faced Canadian from
the field and placed him at the anchor desk of Peter Jennings With the News, then a 15-minute nightly newscast. He
replaced Ron Cochran, a fellow Canadian.[1] At 26, Jennings was, and remains, the youngest-ever U.S. network
news anchor.[9] "ABC was in
bad shape at the time," Jennings said. "They were willing to try anything, and, to demonstrate the point, they tried me."[10]
An inexperienced Jennings had a hard time keeping up with his rivals at the other networks, and he could not compete with the
venerable newscasts of Walter Cronkite at CBS and Chet
Huntley and David Brinkley at NBC. American audiences disliked Jennings'
Canadian English accent. He pronounced lieutenant as "leftenant", mangled the
pronunciation of "Appomattox," and misidentified the Marines' Hymn as Anchors Aweigh at Lyndon Johnson's presidential inauguration; his general ignorance of American affairs and culture led
critics to deride Jennings as a "glamorcaster".[1] "It was a little ridiculous when you think about it," he later reflected. "A
26-year-old trying to compete with Cronkite, Huntley and Brinkley. I was simply unqualified."[11] After three rocky years at the anchor desk, Jennings called it quits and
became a foreign correspondent.[7]
Foreign correspondent
Jennings was determined to build his journalism credentials abroad. In 1968, he established ABC's Middle East bureau in
Beirut, Lebanon, the first American television news bureau in
the Arab world.[12] The next year, he
demonstrated his growing expertise in Middle Eastern affairs with Palestine: New State of Mind, a well-received half-hour
documentary for ABC's Now news program.[1] As ABC's Beirut bureau chief, Jennings soon became familiar with the intricacies of
the Arab-Israeli conflict, including the rise of the Palestinian Black September Organization during the early
1970s. He conducted the first American television interview with PLO
chairman Yasser Arafat.[8] While stationed in the Lebanese capital, Jennings dated Palestinian activist Hanan Ashrawi, who was then a graduate student in literature at American University in Beirut.[13]
In 1972, Jennings covered his first major breaking news story, the Munich Olympics
massacre of Israeli athletes by Black September. His live reporting, which drew on the expertise he had acquired in the
Middle East, provided context for Americans who were unfamiliar with the Palestinian group. By hiding with his camera crew close
to the athletic compound where the Israeli athletes were being held hostage, Jennings was able to provide ABC with clear video of
the masked hostage-takers.[1] He would later be criticized for insisting on using the terms "guerillas" and
"commandos" instead of "terrorists" to describe the members of Black September.[14]
After the events of Munich, Jennings continued to report on Middle East issues. In 1973, he covered the Yom Kippur War, and the following year, he served as chief correspondent and co-producer of Sadat:
Action Biography, a profile of Egyptian president Anwar Sadat that would win him his
first of two George Foster Peabody Awards.[1] The documentary established Jennings as Sadat's favorite
correspondent.[15] That summer, Jennings
married for the second time, to Anouchka Malouf, a Lebanese photographer.[9] His first wife had been childhood sweetheart Valerie
Godsoe.[16]
Jennings returned to the U.S. at the end of 1974 to become Washington correspondent
and news anchor for ABC's new morning program AM America, a predecessor to
Good Morning America.[1] ABC was hoping that the show, in which it had invested
US$8 million, would challenge NBC's highly popular Today. AM America debuted on January 6,
1975, with Jennings delivering regular five-minute newscasts from Washington. The show never gained
ground against Today, and was canceled in just ten months.[17] In November 1975, Jennings moved abroad once again, this time as ABC's chief foreign
correspondent.[1] He
continued to cover the Middle East, and in 1978 he was the first American reporter to interview the Ayatollah Khomeini of Iran, then in exile in Paris.[15]
Meanwhile, ABC News and its newly installed president, Roone Arledge, were preparing an
overhaul of its nightly news program, whose ratings had languished in third place behind
CBS and NBC since its inception. In the late 1970s, a disastrous pairing of Harry
Reasoner and Barbara Walters at the anchor desk left the network searching for
new ideas. Arledge decided to implement a three-anchor format for the program. On July 10,
1978, World News Tonight debuted
with Frank Reynolds in Washington, Max Robinson in
Chicago, and Jennings in London.[18] Jennings' official title was "Foreign Desk Anchor," although he
continued to serve as the network's chief foreign correspondent.[1] By the summer of 1979, the innovative broadcast, which featured some of the same
glitzy presentation as Arledge's previous television coup, Wide World of
Sports, had climbed in the ratings. The newscast had gained 1.9 million households from its debut, and was now in a
dead heat with NBC's evening newscast.[18]
Jennings also found renewed success in his personal life. In 1979, he married for the third time to fellow ABC correspondent
Kati Marton. That same year, he became a father when Marton gave birth to their daughter,
Elizabeth. In 1982, Jennings' and Marton's second child, Christopher, was born.[16]
As part of ABC's triumvirate, Jennings continued to cover major international news, especially Middle East issues. His nightly
appearance at an anchor desk in London gave the impression that ABC News was more dedicated to foreign news than the other
networks.[19] Jennings reported on
the Iranian Revolution and subsequent hostage
crisis, the assassination of Sadat, the Falklands war, Israel's 1982 invasion of Lebanon, and Pope John Paul II's 1983 visit
to Poland. His insistence on covering the major international stories himself irked some of his fellow ABC foreign
correspondents, who came to resent being scooped by what they deemed as "Jennings' Flying Circus."[1] Jennings, too, was not
completely satisfied with his job in London. When his contract expired with ABC in the early 1980s, Jennings flirted with the
possibility of moving back to Canada and working with the CBC on its new nightly newscast, The
Journal. The CBC could not meet Jennings' renegotiation deadlines, though, and the deal fell through.[20]
Sole anchor
In 1983, Reynolds fell ill with multiple myeloma, a form of bone cancer, and was forced to stop anchoring in April. His absence caused a dip in the ratings for ABC's
nightly newscast. ABC originally expected a full recovery, and relocated Jennings to its Washington bureau to fill in for
Reynolds while he was sick; the move helped buoy the newscast's ratings, although it remained in third place. On July 20, 1983, Reynolds died unexpectedly after developing acute hepatitis.[21]
On August 9, 1983, ABC announced that Jennings had signed a
four-year contract with the network and would become the sole anchor and senior editor for World News Tonight on September
5. Jennings would anchor the program from New York City, the program's new base of
operations.[21] The announcement
signaled a generational shift in the evening news broadcasts, and the beginning of what the media would deem the "Big Three" era
of Jennings, Dan Rather of CBS, and Tom Brokaw of
NBC.[7] Rather had already been
elevated to anchor in 1981 after the retirement of Walter Cronkite, and Brokaw of NBC
Nightly News was set to become sole anchor the same day as Jennings. At the time, Jennings expressed apprehension that
the impending competition among the three newsmen was at risk of becoming superficial. "With me, Brokaw and Rather, I recognize
that there will be the factor of three pretty faces," he said. "That's an inevitable byproduct of television. But if that is what
it comes down to in terms of the approach we take, if our approach is that singular, then we will all have made a
mistake."[22]
Jennings' debut on September 5, 1983 marked the beginning
of a steady climb in the ratings for ABC News.[a] He spent his first year at the anchor desk educating himself on American domestic
affairs in preparation for the 1984 presidential campaign
season.[b] In June 1984,
Jennings, who later admitted that his political knowledge was limited at the time, co-anchored ABC's coverage of the Democratic
National Convention with David Brinkley. "I had not covered an election campaign in 16
years," Jennings said, "so here was I going to co-anchor with David Brinkley in 1984, and he wasn't even sure I knew who the
faces belonged to, and he was right."[23] Jennings and ABC were criticized for suddenly halting coverage of the convention for 30
minutes and airing a rerun of Hart to Hart instead.[24]
Despite this somewhat shaky start at the anchor desk, Jennings' broadcast began to climb in the ratings. Jennings was praised
for his performance during the 1986 Space Shuttle Challenger disaster,
when he anchored ABC's coverage of the event for 11 straight hours.[23] By 1989, competition among the three nightly newscasts had risen to fever pitch. When
the Loma Prieta earthquake struck the San Francisco Bay area, media pundits
praised Jennings and ABC News for their prompt on-air response, while criticizing the delayed reaction of Tom Brokaw and NBC News.[25] The next month, Brokaw redeemed himself by scooping the other
networks with news of the fall of the Berlin Wall.[26] It was World News Tonight, however, that ended the year at the
top; ABC's evening newscast spent the last 13 weeks of the year in first place, and its average ratings for the entire year beat
CBS for the first time.[27]
Jennings' on-air success continued in 1990, and World News Tonight consistently led the ratings race. In January, he
anchored the first installment of Peter Jennings Reporting – hour-long,
prime-time ABC News specials dedicated to exploring a single topic. His inaugural program on gun violence in America drew praise.[28] His second installment of Peter Jennings Reporting in April,
"From the Killing Fields", focused on US policy towards Cambodia. The program alleged that the
federal government was covertly supporting the Khmer Rouge's return to power in the Asian
nation, a charge that the Bush administration initially denied.[29] On July 18, though, the White House announced that it
was ending recognition of the Khmer Rouge.[30]
When the Gulf War started on January 16,
1991, Jennings began a marathon anchoring stint to cover the story, spending 20 of the first 48
hours of the war on-air, and leading ABC News to its highest-ever ratings.[c] After interrupting regular Saturday morning cartoons on January 19, 1991 to broadcast a military briefing from Saudi Arabia, Jennings and ABC
became concerned about the emotional impact of the war coverage on children. Out of that concern, Jennings hosted a 90-minute
special, War in the Gulf: Answering Children's Questions the next Saturday morning; the program featured Jennings, ABC
correspondents, and American military personnel answering phoned-in questions and explaining the war to young viewers.[31]
On October 13, 1991, breaking news forced ABC News to
interrupt regular Saturday morning programming as well. Jennings was once again mindful of his audience, prefacing the coverage
of the Senate confirmation hearings for Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas with
remarks for children. "You may hear some not very nice language," said Jennings. He noted that Thomas and his accuser,
Anita Hill, "have a very painful disagreement about some things the woman says the man did to
her when they were working together...You can ask your parents to tell you more."[32] Jennings continued to produce special programs aimed at young
viewers, anchoring Growing Up in the Age of AIDS, a frank, 90-minute-long discussion on AIDS
in February 1992,[33] and
Prejudice: Answering Children's Questions, a forum on racism in April 1992.[34]
Politics dominated network news in 1992. Jennings moderated the final debate among the Democratic presidential candidates in March,[35] and anchored Peter Jennings Reporting: Who Is Ross Perot? and a subsequent 90-minute town forum with Perot and a studio audience in June.[36] On September 9, 1992, ABC announced that it would be switching the format of its
political coverage to give less recognition to staged sound bites. "We're aware that a lot of
you are turned off by the political process and that many of you put at least some of the blame on us," Jennings told viewers on
World News Tonight. "We'll only devote time to a candidate's daily routine if it is more than routine. There will be less
attention to staged appearances and sound bites designed exclusively for television."[37] After Bill
Clinton was elected as president in November 1992, Jennings featured the new administration in two of his specials for
children; he anchored President Clinton: Answering Children's Questions in February 1993,[38] and Kids in the Crossfire: Violence in America in November
1993, a live special from a Washington, D.C. junior high school which featured Attorney
General Janet Reno and rapper MC Lyte.[39]
The early 1990s also served up a series of rough patches for Jennings. On August 13,
1993, Jennings and Kati Marton publicly announced their separation in Newsday. The couple had previously split in 1987 for four months after Jennings found out that Marton was
having an affair with Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen.[40] In January 1994, he locked horns with his executive producer on World News
Tonight, Emily Rooney. The public firing of Rooney made national headlines, and put
Jennings on the defensive.[41]
With the rise of media watchdog groups, such as the conservative Media Research
Center (MRC), Jennings came under increasing scrutiny for his "biases". The anchor drew fire from conservatives, such as
the MRC and Cal Thomas, for his November 14,
1994 remarks on ABC Radio, in which he analyzed the
results of the 1994 US midterm elections. "Some
thoughts on those angry voters. Ask parents of any two-year-old and they can tell you about those temper tantrums: the stomping
feet, the rolling eyes, the screaming," said Jennings. "Imagine a nation full of uncontrolled two-year-old rage. The voters had a
temper tantrum last week....Parenting and governing don’t have to be dirty words: the nation can’t be run by an angry
two-year-old."[42][43] A July 1995 documentary,
Peter Jennings Reporting: Hiroshima: Why the Bomb Was Dropped, which aired a week before the 50th anniversary of the
atomic bombing of Hiroshima, also drew scorn from
conservatives and some television critics, who called the program a revisionist look at the decision to drop the bomb.[44] Some viewers of the documentary
mailed bus fare to Jennings, telling him to return to Canada.[45]
He pleased some conservatives though, after his three-year lobbying effort to create a full-time religion correspondent at ABC
News succeeded in the hiring of Peggy Wehmeyer in January 1994, making her the first such
network reporter.[46]
ABC increased its coverage of religious topics, and in March 1995, he anchored Peter Jennings Reporting: In the Name of
God, a well-received documentary on the changing nature of American churches.[47] At a taping of a "town meeting" segment for KOMO-TV of Seattle in February 1995, Jennings expressed regret for his ABC radio remarks on the 1994 midterm
elections. "People thought I had insulted their sacred mandate and some thought I should go back to Canada," he said. "I hope I
don't make that mistake again."[48]
During the mid-1990s, television critics praised Jennings for his insistence on not letting the O.J. Simpson murder case swamp the newscast.[d] Instead, Jennings devoted his energies to covering the
War in Bosnia and Herzegovina, anchoring three hour-long prime time
specials on the subject and one Saturday-morning special aimed at children. ABC dedicated more time to covering the conflict than
any other network from 1992 to 1996.[49] Jennings
received the Goldsmith Career Award for Excellence in Journalism from the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard
University, in large part for his passion for the story.[50] Jennings was also credited for raising the profile in the U.S. of another international
story, the 1995 Quebec referendum. The Canadian press in particular raved about
his in-depth coverage of the issue, and he was the only anchor to broadcast from Canada on the eve of the referendum.[51]
Despite these critical successes, in 1996, World News Tonight started gradually slipping in the ratings race. Bolstered
by strong viewership of its coverage of the 1996 Summer Olympic Games, NBC's
Nightly News overtook the ABC newscast for two weeks in late July and early September.[52] This short bump provided momentum for NBC, which started making
steady gains in the ratings. Worried, Jennings and ABC decided to cut back on international reporting and give more air time to
"soft stories", in an effort to emulate the success of Nightly News. The changes provoked a backlash from regular viewers,
and ratings plummeted. "We did very badly with it," Jennings said. "The audience kicked us in the teeth."[45] Although changes were made to World
News Tonight to restore its luster and stop the hemorrhaging, Nightly News ended 1997 as the number one evening
newscast.[53]
The slide in the ratings coincided with some rockiness at ABC News. The company scrapped plans to develop a cable news
channel. On March 6, 1997, ABC announced that David Westin would be taking over as president of its news division for Roone Arledge in June 1998. Both
denied that the disappointing ratings performance of World News Tonight contributed to the decision.[54] A 24-hour strike by the National
Association of Broadcast Employees & Technicians disrupted ABC's coverage of 1998's November elections after talks between
the union and ABC broke down. Several Democratic candidates denied interviews to support the union, forcing Jennings to
explain to viewers why ABC was not interviewing Democrats.[55]
None of the shake-ups helped Jennings retake the nightly ratings crown, but World News Tonight still offered stiff
competition at second place. As the millennium approached, Jennings and the network started
preparing for extensive retrospectives of the 20th century. The anchor teamed with former Life magazine journalist Todd Brewster to pen The Century, a 606-page book on 20th century America. Designed as a companion book for ABC's upcoming
documentary series of the same name, the book topped the New York Times
Best Seller List in December 1998, a month after it debuted.[56] On March 29, 1999,
Jennings anchored the first installment of ABC's 12-hour miniseries, The Century; production on the monumental project
started in 1990, and by the time it aired, it had cost the network $25 million.[e] Jennings also anchored a longer, 15-hour version,
The Century: America's Time, on the History Channel in April 1999.
On December 31, 1999, Jennings was on the air for 23
straight hours to anchor ABC 2000 Today, ABC's massive millennium eve special. An
estimated 175 million people tuned into at least a portion of the program.[57] Jennings' American prime-time audience, an estimated 18.6 million
viewers, easily outpaced the millennium coverage of rival networks.[58] Television critics praised the program, and described the anchor as "superhuman".[59] Although production costs totaled a
hefty $11 million (compared with $2 million each for NBC's and CBS's millennium projects), ABC managed to make a profit of $5
million.[60] The success of
the program, though, failed to transfer into any lasting change in the viewership of World News Tonight; ABC's evening
newscast spent the first week of January as ratings leader, before dropping back to second place.[61]
September 11
No event tested Jennings' anchoring duties more than the September 11
attacks of 2001. He anchored ABC's coverage of that day's events for 17 straight hours, an effort described as "Herculean"
by television critics.[62] He, like other
network news anchors, was widely praised for guiding Americans through the tragedy. At one point, Jennings broke his composure
after receiving phone calls from his children. "We do not very often make recommendations for people's behavior from this chair,"
he said, "but...if you're a parent, you've got a kid in some other part of the country, call them up. Exchange
observations."[63]
His coverage was not without controversy though. After conservative radio host Rush
Limbaugh blasted Jennings for supposedly denigrating President George W. Bush
on-air during September 11, ABC was flooded with more than 10,000 angry phone calls and e-mails. Jennings, however, never made
the remarks, and Limbaugh later apologized and made a retraction.[64] On September 13, Jennings received more criticism from conservatives — this time for
hosting a forum for Middle East experts that included his former girlfriend, Hanan
Ashrawi.[65] In the
summer of 2002, Jennings and ABC refused to allow Toby Keith to open their coverage of July 4
celebrations with "Courtesy of the Red, White,
& Blue", prompting criticism from Keith and country music fans, who highlighted the anchor's Canadian
citizenship.[66]
The events of September 11 added new meaning to In Search of America, the project
Jennings and Brewster started after the success of their previous collaboration. The two began writing the book in early 2001;
after the terrorist attacks, they revisited many of the people they had interviewed to see how the events had affected
them.[67] To promote the book, the
anchor and World News Tonight started a 50-state tour of the United States in April 2002 as part of a yearlong project,
50 States/One Nation/One Year. Jennings also anchored a six-part television series in September 2002, which featured the
same name as the book. Despite the success of the TV series and heavy promotion by the book's publisher, In Search of
America failed to generate much interest or sales.[68]
His work on In Search of America and the September 11 attacks contributed to his decision in 2003 to become a
dual citizen of Canada and the United States. "I think that 9/11 and the subsequent
travel I did in the country afterwards made me feel connected in new ways," he said. "And when we were working on the America
project I spent a lot of time on the road, which meant away from my editor's desk, and I just got much more connected to the
Founding Fathers' dreams and ideas for the future."[69] His work had prepared him well for the citizenship test, which he easily passed.
"Can you imagine I, who just finished a whole series on America and had been an anchorperson for an American broadcast...could
you imagine if I had failed?" he asked. "It would have been horrendous."[70] The anchor's formal pledge of allegiance took place at a
regular citizenship ceremony on May 30 in Lower Manhattan. The occasion overwhelmed him. "I went
in the front door and came out the front door. They were regular people. They were very touching. And I cried a little bit — my
kids didn't cry, but I cried a bit — but I'm a fairly emotional character anyway."[69]
Leaving the chair
By late 2004, Brokaw had retired from his anchoring duties at NBC, ceding the reins to Brian
Williams; Rather planned to step down in March 2005. Jennings and ABC saw an opportunity to gain viewers, and initiated a
publicity blitz touting the anchor's foreign reporting experience. However, despite having almost always reported from the scene
of any major news story, Jennings was sidelined by an upper respiratory
infection in late December 2004; he was forced to anchor from New York during the aftermath of the Asian tsunami, while his competitors traveled to the region. For Jennings, the situation
was agonizing.[71]
An ailing Jennings informs viewers of
World News Tonight on
April 5,
2005 that he has
lung cancer in a taped message.
In late March, viewers started noticing that Jennings' voice sounded uncharacteristically gravelly and unhealthy during
evening newscasts. On April 1, 2005, he anchored World News
Tonight for the last time; his health also prevented him from covering the death and funeral of Pope John Paul II. On April 5,
2005, Jennings informed viewers through a taped message on World News Tonight that he had
been diagnosed with lung cancer, and was starting chemotherapy treatment the following week. "As some of you now know, I have learned in the last couple of
days that I have lung cancer," he said. "Yes, I was a smoker until about 20 years ago, and I was weak and I smoked over 9/11. But
whatever the reason, the news does slow you down a bit."[72] Although he stated his intention to continue anchoring whenever possible, the
message was to be his last appearance on television.
Throughout the summer, Charles Gibson, co-host of Good Morning America, and Elizabeth Vargas, co-host
of 20/20, served as temporary anchors. On April 29,
2005 Jennings posted a letter on ABCNews.com with an update of his status and expressing thanks to
those who had offered him their good wishes and prayers.[73] In June, Jennings visited the ABC News headquarters, and addressed staff members in an
emotional speech; he thanked Gibson for closing each broadcast with the phrase, "for Peter Jennings and all of us at ABC
News."[7] He posted another short
letter of thanks on July 29, 2005, his 67th birthday.[74]
Death
On August 7, 2005, just after 11:30 PM EST, Gibson broke into regular programming on ABC to announce Jennings' death from
lung cancer.[7] He read a short
statement from the family, and disclosed that Jennings had died in his New York apartment with his wife, two children, and sister
at his side.[75] The anchor's ABC colleagues,
including Barbara Walters, Diane Sawyer, and
Ted Koppel shared their thoughts on Jennings' passing. The next morning, Brokaw and Rather
fondly remembered their former rival on the morning news shows. "Peter, of the
three of us, was our prince," said Brokaw on Today. "He seemed so timeless. He had such élan and style."[76] American President George W. Bush and Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin offered
statements of condolence to the press.[77][78]
On August 10, 2005, ABC aired a two-hour special, Peter
Jennings: Reporter, with archival clips of his reports and interviews with colleagues and friends. The special drew over 9
million viewers, and was the most watched television program of the night.[79] For the week of his death, World News Tonight placed number
one in the ratings race for the first time since June 2004.[80]
The Jennings family held a private service in New York, where the anchor's cremated remains were split in half. Half of his
ashes remained in his home in Long Island and the other half was placed in his
summer home in the Gatineau Hills, near Ottawa.[81] The 57th
Primetime Emmy Awards on September 18, 2005 included a
tribute to Jennings by Brokaw and Rather.[82] A public memorial service for Jennings was held two days later at Carnegie Hall. Notable journalists, political leaders, and other friends of Jennings attended.[83] On December
5, 2005, after much speculation, and nearly eight months after Jennings stopped anchoring,
ABC named Vargas and Bob Woodruff co-anchors for World News Tonight.
Honors
Jennings won numerous honors throughout his career, including 16 Emmys and two
George Foster Peabody Awards. His work on World News Tonight and Peter Jennings
Reporting consistently won Overseas Press Club and duPont-Columbia awards.[12] At the peak of his popularity, Jennings was named "Best Anchor" by the Washington Journalism Review in 1988, 1989, 1990, and 1992.[15] The Radio and Television News Directors Association awarded Jennings its highest
honor, the Paul White Award in 1995, in recognition of his lifetime
contributions to journalism.[84] In 2004, he was awarded with the Edward R.
Murrow Award for Lifetime Achievement in Broadcasting from Washington State
University.[85]
Just eight days before his death, Jennings was informed that he would be awarded the Order
of Canada, the nation's highest honor.[81] His daughter, Elizabeth, accepted the award on his behalf in October 2005. On
February 21, 2006, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg designated the block on West 66th Street between Columbus Avenue and Central Park West as "Peter
Jennings Way" in honor of the late anchor. The block is home to the ABC News headquarters.[86] In October 2006, The Walt
Disney Company, which bought ABC in 1996, posthumously named Jennings a Disney
Legend, the company's highest honor. He was the first ABC News employee so honored.[87]
Publications
Articles
Books
- with Todd Brewster. The Century. London: Doubleday (1999). ISBN 0385483279.
- with Todd Brewster. In Search of America. New York: Hyperion (2002). ISBN
0786867086.
Notes
a. Jennings' debut program led with coverage of
Korean Air Lines Flight 007. It also featured stories on the resignation of
Israeli Prime Minister Menahem Begin, violent clashes in Lebanon, labor unions, and tennis' US
Open.[88]
b. Jennings' performance during the 1984
presidential campaign was analyzed in a 1986 study led by Syracuse University
professor Brian Mullen. He concluded that Jennings "exhibited a facial expression bias in favor of Reagan".[89] Mullen's team repeated the study to
analyze Jennings' performance in the 1988 presidential election, concluding that the ABC anchor again favored a Republican candidate.[90] Television critic Tom Shales also noticed a
pro-Reagan bias in Jennings' reporting, referring to ABC as "a news organization that is already considered the White House
favorite" in May 1985.[91]
c. ABC News "had its highest evening newscast
rating ever the first week in the war, and two nights of its prime-time coverage were among the 10 most-watched shows on
television".[31]
d. "Of a combined total of 1,592 minutes of O.J.
[Simpson] coverage in the year after the murders of Nicole Simpson and
Ron Goldman, ABC had the least: 423 minutes, compared to 589 minutes on NBC and 580 on
CBS."[92] The Simpson trial was
the number one news story for NBC and CBS in 1995, while at ABC, coverage of the War in Bosnia and Herzegovina dominated the newscast.[49] Jennings stated in a 1996 interview that he was satisfied that ABC came in
third in terms of O.J. coverage. "I'm very pleased that it didn't crowd out as much of the rest of the world on World News
Tonight as it did on other broadcasts," he said. "I am very pleased it was not our major story of last year as it was at
other networks."[93]
e. The immense scope of The Century caused headaches for those developing it. It survived three major changes in
narrative approach, three different executive producers, and various attempts to axe the entire project. By the time it aired,
all of the people interviewed for their anecdotes of World War I had passed away. Jennings,
though, downplayed criticism of the program's rocky history. "Name me a news organization that doesn't have some degree of
turmoil on a major project," he said. "What people care about in The New York
Times is what gets in the paper. It's the same with us. There are people out there who think their job is to set the
bar for us, but the bar for me is set by the audience, and I think there is a real hunger out there from everyone I encounter to
relive and experience and learn from what's gone on over the last 100 years."[94]
References
